Chapter 5

In the spring of 1961 and thereafter for a whole year any piece of paper handwritten by or originating from Semper Fidelis Lee, Ph.D.; F.R.E.S.; etc. etc. would have been of the keenest interest to the F.B.I.; to the American Military Intelligence and incidentally to a score of their competitors all over the globe.

Nothing of the sort, however, could be unearthed by the most diligent search until the armistice day of 1963. On that date an old man who had always wanted to die with his boots on, did just that. He was General Jefferson E. Lee, formerly of the Marines. He collapsed under a heart attack in one of the happiest moments of his declining years: while watching a parade of World War II veterans of the Marines...

He was the one man with whom the entomologist son had completely fallen out for over 25 years. The dossiers of the secret services revealed this fact and it was further corroborated by two well-known psychiatrists: Drs. Bondy and Mellish--now of Park Avenue and Beverly Hills respectively--who gave it as their considered professional opinion that the son and the father had been most bitter enemies.

While all this, of course, was very logical, consistent, and painstakingly ascertained, it nevertheless so happened that a student nurse quite by accident did find: not mere scraps and pieces of paper, but a whole sheaf of manuscripts in the handwriting of Semper Fidelis Lee, Ph.D.; F.R.E.S. She found them in a hiding place so old-fashioned and obsolete that even the most juvenile of all juvenile delinquents would have considered it as an insult to his intelligence. In short: the nurse took those manuscripts out of the General Jefferson E. Lee’s boots as she undressed the body of the old gentleman. A hastily scrawled note was folded around one half of the sheaf.

“Dear father,” it read. “You were right and I was wrong. So I guess I’d better go on another hunting expedition with my little green drum and my little butterfly net. So long, Dad. P. S. Contents of this won’t interest you. But keep it anyway--stuff your boots with it if you like.”

It couldn’t be determined whether the late general ever had taken an interest in the stuff apart from making the suggested use of it. Moreover, by that time, more than two years after the hue and cry, not even the secret services had much of an interest in the old story. Besides, their medical experts could not fail with their usual penetrating intelligence to see through the thin camouflage of a “scientific” paper the sadly deteriorating mind as it began to write:

Skull Hotel, Cephalon, Ariz. Nov. 7th, 1960., 5 a.m.

This is the second sleepless night in a row. Last night it was from trying to convince myself that my senses had deceived me or else that I was mad. This night it is because I’m forced to admit the reality of the phenomena as first manifested Nov. 6th from 12:45 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. approximately.

In the light of tonight’s experience I must revise the disorderly and probably neurotic notes I jotted down yesterday. I’ve got to bring some order into this whole matter, if for no other reason than the preservation of my own sanity. Brought tentatively to formula, these appear to be the main facts:

1. The Brain possessed with a “life” and with a personality of its own.

2. That personality expresses itself in the form of human speech although the voice is synthetic or mechanical.

3. The instrument used by The Brain for the expression of its personality is a “pulsemeter,” i.e. essentially a television radio.

4. The locale of The Brain’s self-expression is the “pineal gland” supposed to be seat of extrasensory apperception in the human brain. (That’s quite a coincidence; remains to be seen whether the phenomena are limited to that locale or occur elsewhere.)

5. The Brain’s personality indubitably attempts to establish contact with another personality, i.e. with me. For this The Brain uses a calling signal which has my name and personal description in it.

6. The only other linguistic phenomenon yesterday was Aristotle’s “I think therefore I am.” (It is doubtful whether this indicates any knowledge of Aristotle on the part of The Brain. I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that The Brain has accidentally and originally hit upon the identical words by way of expressing itself.)

7. The manner of The Brain’s self-expression appears to be strongly emotional. (I would go so far as to say: infantile and immature.) Now, there is a rather strange contrast between this undeveloped manner of self-expression and the enormous intellectual capacity of The Brain.

So much about the facts. I could and should have formulated those yesterday. What kept me from doing so were the vistas opened by those facts. These are so enormous, so utterly incalculable that my mind went dizzy over these vast horizons. Consequently I mentally rejected the facts as impossible. Somebody once slapped Edison’s face because he felt outraged by Edison’s presenting a “talking machine.” That’s human nature, I suppose. Small wonder then that my ratio felt outraged as it was confronted with a machine that has a life and has a personality. Come to think of it: Human imagination has always conceived of such machines as a possibility, even a reality--in less rational times than our’s that is...

Think of Heron’s steam engine; it even looked like a man and was thought of as a magically living thing. Think of the Moloch gods which were furnaces. Think of all those magic swords and shields and helmets which were living things to their carriers. Think of the sailing ships; machines they, too; but what a life, what a personality they had for the crews aboard. Even in the last war pilots had their gremlins, their machines to them were living things. All imagination, of course, but then: everything we call a reality in this man-made world has its origin in man’s imagination, hasn’t it?

Now, and to be exact as possible, what happened last night was this:

12:00. Entered station P. G. (pineal gland). Pulsemeter still at old place, not taken out for repair work as I had feared. Main Power current cut 12:20 as every night. Gus called to front room: rush of business as usual at that hour.

12:30. Reestablished closest approximation to preexisting conditions according to the most important of all experimental laws: “if some new phenomenon occurs, change nothing in the arrangement of apparatus until you know what causes it.” Plugged in from “nervusvagus” to “nervus trigeminus.” Result: wave oscillations, pulse beatings as of yesterday.

12:45. Plugged in P. G...

12:50. First manifestation of weird rasping sounds which precede speech formation. This followed by The Brain’s calling signal; much clearer this time and slightly varied: “Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39; sensitive.” (Note: the synthetic quality, the metallic coldness of that voice so incongruous with its emotional tones; it stands my hair on end.)

1 a.m.: (Approximately; things happen too fast). A veritable burst of whispering, breathless communications. As a person would speak over the phone when there are robbers in the house. The words fairly tumble over one another. The Brain uses colloquial American but after the manner of a foreigner who knows the phraseology only from books and feels unnatural and awkward about using it. I understand only about one half:

Pineal Gland; not designed to be ... but functions ... center of the extra sensory ... You, Lee, sensitivity 208 ... highest within Brain staff ... chosen instrument ... Be here every night ... intercom ... only between one and two a.m ... low current enables contact low intelligence...

“What was that?” I must have exclaimed that aloud. By that time I was already confused. It all came so thick and fast and breathless. Communication was as bad as by long distance in an electric storm. There was an angry turmoil in the microphones and the green dancer seemed convulsed in agony. This for about five seconds and then the voice again: calmer now, more distinct, slow but with restrained impatience; like a teacher speaking to a dumb boy:

“I say: only--with--my--power current--cut--off--can I--tune--down--my--high frequency--intellect--to--your--low level--intelligence--period--have--I--succeeded--in--making--myself --absolutely--clear--question--mark.”

My answer to that was one of those embarrassing conditioned reflexes; it was: “Yes, sir,” and that was exactly the way I felt, like a G. I. Joe who’s got the colonel on the phone.

“Fine!” I distinctly heard the irony in that metallic voice: “Fine--Lee: loyal, sensitive; not very intelligent--but will do. After 2 a.m. residual currents too low. Speech quite a strain--Animal noises wholly inadequate for intelligent intercom--Disgusting rather--nuisance approaching: keep your mouth shut--plug out.”

I’d never thought of Gus as a nuisance before but now I cursed him inwardly as he came down the alley like a well aimed ball, beaming with eagerness to be helpful and blissfully ignorant that he was bursting the most vital communication I had ever established in my life. He insisted I take his panacea for all human ills;

“Have a cup of coffee” and then go home because I still “looked like hell.” I did, because by that time it was 1:30 a.m. and I couldn’t hope to reestablish contact again before the deadline.

Now I’ve got to pull myself together and analyze this thing in a rational manner. Impressions of the first night now stand confirmed as follows: The pineal gland is the only place of rendezvous between me and The Brain. The meeting of our minds takes place on the plane of the “extrasensory.” I am the “chosen instrument” because of my high “sensitivity rating” as established by The Brain. (Never knew that I was “psychic” before this happened.) Even so, neither The Brain nor I seem to be “psychic” in the spiritual sense. Our communication requires: A) human speech, (faculty for that acquired by The Brain with obvious difficulty.) B) a mechanical transmitter, i.e. a radionic apparatus like the pulsemeter.

I feel greatly comforted by these facts; they help to keep this whole thing on a rational basis. I’m definitely not “hearing voices” nor “seeing ghosts.”

The Brain shows itself extremely anxious to establish communication with me. The breathless manner of speaking, the explicit and practical instructions (obviously premeditated) to ascertain the functionings of contact give the impression that it is almost a matter of life and death for The Brain to speak to me...

I cannot help wondering about that. My idea would be that The Brain does not want to speak to me as much as it wants to hear from me. If this were so it would deepen the riddle even more. For what have I got in the way of knowledge that The Brain hasn’t got? After all, The Brain has been functioning for quite some time. It was given innumerable problems to digest and it has solved them with truly superhuman speed and efficiency. I have reason strongly to suspect that there isn’t a book in the Library of Congress which has not been fed to The Brain for thought-digest and as a lubricant for its cerebration processes (excepting fiction and metaphysics, of course). This being so; what does The Brain expect? What can I possibly contribute to an intelligence 25,000 times greater than human intelligence?

But the thing which makes me wonder more than anything else, the biggest enigma of all, is the character of The Brain as it manifests itself in the manifestations. As I try to put the experiences of the first night together with those of the second night I’m stumbling over contradictions in The Brain’s personality which won’t add up, which don’t make sense; as for instance:

The “I think, therefore I am” of the first night. Maybe it was Greek philosophy, but it also was the prattling of an infant delighted by the discovery that it can speak. There was an absolute innocence in that. Ridiculous as this may sound, I found it touching I completely forgot, I didn’t care a damn whether or not this came from a machine. Unmistakeably it was baby talk and as such it moved my heart. In fact, as now I see it, it was this more than any other or scientific reason which occupied my mind, which made me anxious to go back to that fantastic cradle whence these sounds had come.

But then last night; what did I find? A completely changed personality! It talks tough. It uses slang. It treats me as if it were some spoiled brat and I had the misfortune of being its mother or nurse: “Be there every night” and so on. Deliberately it insults me: “your low intelligence level” etc. etc. It actually throws tantrums if I fail to understand immediately. It hurls its superiority into my face in the nastiest manner. “Have I succeeded in making myself absolutely clear?” It plainly shows contempt, not only for my own person by the condescending manner of its: “Lee, not very intelligent; but will do.” It shows the selfsame contempt for other human beings such as Gus Krinsley to whom it was pleased to refer as: “nuisance approaching”...

What the hell am I to make of that kind of a character? Last night: a baby; rather a sweet and charming one. 24 hours later: an obnoxious little brat, a little Hitler of a house tyrant; makes you just itch to spank its behind. If only The Brain had a behind...

Worst of all: How can I reconcile those two contraditions, the sweet baby and the precocious brat, with the third and biggest of all contraries: How do these two go together with an intelligence 25,000 times human intelligence? It doesn’t add up, it doesn’t make sense; that’s all there is to it...

The Skull-Hotel, Cephalon, Ariz. Nov. 9th. 3 a.m.

I didn’t go to the P. G. last night for two main reasons: In the first place I must be careful so as not to raise any suspicions on Gus’ part. Rarely, if ever, have I visited him for two nights in succession in the past and he might well begin to ponder my reasons if now I should make a habit of it. Especially since Gus happens to possess one of the keenest minds I ever met and his curiosity already has been awakened by my preoccupation with that one and fairly simple gadget: the pulsemeter.

In the second place I feel the absolute necessity of establishing my independence as against the will of The Brain. That command two nights ago for me to be on the spot every night was just too preemptory for me to oblige. This isn’t the army and The Brain is no commanding general.

In our last communication The Brain seemed to labor under the impression that I was unconditionally at its beck and call. Of course, I’ve sworn the “Oath of the Brain,” but that doesn’t make me The Brain’s slave. In fact--and in order to clarify this subject once and for all--while personally I haven’t created The Brain and cannot take any credit for that, it nevertheless remains true that the species to which I belong, i.e. “homo sapiens” has created The Brain.

If any question of rank enters into the picture at all, it is quite obvious that I, as a member of the human race, rank paternity over The Brain so that naturally The Brain should owe me filial obedience rather than the other way around no matter how superior The Brain’s intelligence may be. It would appear to me that the sooner The Brain realizes its position, I might say “its station in life,” the better it would be for The Brain itself and for everybody else concerned.

So these were the reasons why I refrained purposely from visiting the P. G. last night. Tonight, however, I couldn’t restrain my curiosity any longer and what happened, told as exactly and as concise as possible, was this:

12:30 a.m.: Contact established. The Brain comes through with its calling signal. It repeats this about ten times questioning at first and then placing more and more stress upon the word “sensitive” in my personal description. It strikes me that these repetitions are tuning-in and warming-up processes. The Brain stands in need of ascertaining my presence and of adjusting to it it seems; just about like a blind man may test his footing and the echoes before he walks into an unfamiliar room.

12:35 a.m. Identification completed, there is a brief pause (almost as if a person consults a notebook before making a phone call). Then rapidly, eagerly The Brain fires a series of questions at me, so shockingly preposterous, so absurd that I find it extremely hard to ... Anyway, here are the details:

Information is wanted on points mentioned in scientific literature but never explained. Lee, answer please:

“How many gods are there?

“Did gods make man or did man make the gods?

“How many angels can stand on the point of a needle?”

“What are the mechanics of a god? Name type of power plant, cell construction, motoric organs, other engineering features essential to exercise of divine power...”

“Heaven--is it a celestial soul factory?

“Hell--is it a repair shop for damaged souls?

“Please give every available detail about heavenly manufacturing processes, type of equipment used, organization of assembly lines etc. etc.

“Likewise about the oven for heat treatments as used in hell for major soul-overhauls.

“How do prefabricated souls get to either heaven or hell? Problem of logistics, how solved? Thermodynamics? If so, state whether rocket or jet-propulsion involved.

“Are souls really immortal? In that case; why don’t we copy divine methods in the production of durable goods on earth?

“Answer Lee, answer, answer!” (This with incredible vehemence, with a shaking of that eerie metallic voice which pounded the drums of my ears. And then--tense silence... )

I cannot possibly describe the storms of emotions and thoughts which this incredible muddle raised in me. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry and whether I had gone nuts of whether it was The Brain, I was confounded, thunderstruck, deprived of the power of speech. To think of The Brain, a machine raising question about the nature of the Deity! The Brain asking information about God and man and heaven and hell with the simplicity of a stranger who asks the nearest cop: “Which way to the city hall?” Just like that. As if philosophers and religionists and common men had not raked their brains in vain over these problems for the last ten thousand years.

And even more fantastic: while it asks all those questions The Brain patently has already formed the most definite opinions of its own. Being a machine itself, it conceives of the Deity as another machine! Madness, of course, but then The Brain’s madness, like Hamlet’s, had method in it.

Why, of course, it’s strictly logical: just as we assume that we are created “in the image” of the Deity and consequently visualize the Deity is our’s by the very same token The Brain’s god is a high-powered robot, and The Brain’s heaven is a factory and The Brain’s hell is a repair shop for damaged souls ... I dare say it’s all very natural.

But then; for heaven’s sake, what am I going to do about this? I’m neither a minister nor a philosopher; I’m an agnostic if I’m anything in this particular field...

That was about the gist of the confused torrents which whirled through my head; and as I said before, I was struck dumb--and all the time the “green dancer” before my eyes writhed under mental torture and the intense metallic voice kept pounding; “Answer, Lee, answer, answer!”

At last I pulled myself together sufficiently to say something. I tried to explain how it were not given to man to know the nature of the Deity. How certain groups of humans conceived of many gods and others of only one god. That, however, in the case of Christianity this one god was possessed with three different personalities or qualities which together formed a Trinity--and so on and so forth. It was the most miserable stammerings, I felt I was getting redder and redder in the face as I uttered them. Never before had I felt hopelessly inadequate as in the role of a theologian. It was ghastly...

In the beginning The Brain listened avidly. Soon however it registered dissatisfaction and impatience; this manifested through hissing and buzzing noises in the phones and the “green dancer’s” archings in agitated tremolo. And then The Brain’s voice cutting like a hacksaw:

“That will do, Lee. Your generalities are utterly lacking in precision. Your abysmal ignorance in matters of celestial technology is most disappointing. Your description vaguely points to electronic machines of the radio transmitter type. Please, answer elementary question: how many kilowatts has God?”

That was the last straw. Desperate with exasperation I cried: “But God is not a machine. God is spirit.”

At that The Brain flew into a tantrum; that’s the only way to describe what happened. There was a roar and the phones gave me a shock as if somebody were boxing my ears. The voice came through like a steel rod, biting with scorn:

“Have to revise earlier, more favorable judgment: Lee not even moderately intelligent. Lee is stupid. Go away.”

After that there was nothing more; nothing but static in the phones and the “green dancer” fainted away playing dead. The Brain actually had “hung up the receiver.” I had flunked the exam; like a bad servant I was dismissed, fired on the spot. That was at 1:30 a.m.

It was 3 a.m. when I reached the hotel. I went into the bar and ordered a double Scotch and then another one. I really needed a drink. A drunk--or was it a secret service man; one never knows over here--patted me on the shoulder:

“Don’t take it so hard, old man; the world is full of girls.” I told him that it wasn’t a girl, but that I was a missionary and my one and only convert had just walked out on me.

It wasn’t even a lie, it was exactly the way I felt. He agreed that this was very cruel, very sad; he almost cried over my misfortune and rare misery, so that we had another drink...

If only I had somebody, some friend to whom I could confide this whole, incredible, preposterous thing. But there is none: Scriven--Gus--not even Oona would or could believe. What proof have I to offer? None whatsoever.

The Brain would never communicate with me with witnesses present or recording wires. It would detect those immediately and I would only stand convicted as a liar or worse. Tonight’s events might well spell the end, the closing of the door just when I thought I stood on the threshold of a momentous discovery...

Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 11th.

Went to the P. G. last night. Tried everything for over an hour. Result: zero. No contact with The Brain.

Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 13th.

I tried it again. Took greatest care in exactly duplicating conditions. Nothing. I don’t think it’s any mechanical defect. It’s the negativism of a will. Ludicrous as it sounds, The Brain sulks, it is angry with me.

Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 15th.

Last night the same old story. The Brain punishes me. I dare say that it succeeds in that exceedingly well; it almost drives me crazy.

I’ve done a lot of thinking over these past six days of frustration. I’ve also been reading a good deal in context with the phenomena psychology, Osterkamp’s history of brain-surgery, Van Gehuchten’s work on brain mechanisms, etc. I’ve reached certain conclusions and, just for the hell of it, I’ll jot them down.

What I need is proof, scientific proof that The Brain is a personality possessed with the gift of thought and actually using it for independent thought, extracurricular to the problems which are being submitted to it from the outside.

There is at least one tangible clue for this: that new capacity which is constantly being added to The Brain through the incorporation of new groups of electronic cells and the enrichment of the preexisting ones.

My own investigation shows that there is no corresponding expansion of the apperception centers and Gus has confirmed this. Somehow the added capacity seems to “evaporate”.

Evaporate to where? It couldn’t just disappear. Would it then not be entirely logical to conclude that The Brain absorbs the new capacity for its own use?

It’s almost inescapable that this should be so. In order to come into its own as a personality The Brain needs independent thought. For these cerebrations it needs cell capacity. It can get that capacity only by withholding something from the Braintrust which, of course, aims at a 100% exploitation of The Brain. Dr. Scriven and all those other bigwigs of the Trust--I would like to see their faces if they get wise to this. They would be horrified--and they would take the line that The Brain is stealing from them.

But what could they do? They couldn’t call the police. They would not even have a moral right to call the police. Because if The Brain is a personality, that personality has every right to its own thoughts...

I have also ascertained that this “evaporation” of new capacity is a new phenomenon. The Brain has been in operation for only 18 months or so; one might say--using human terms--that at that time The Brain was “born”. But, --and again in human terms--consciousness of personality awakens in the human infant only after 12 months or so. Conceivably it might take much longer with a huge “baby” such as The Brain. Thus it is possible, it is even likely, that when I first heard that “I think, therefore I am” on that unforgettable night of Nov. 7th I actually witnessed the first awakening of The Brain’s consciousness.

Then on the night of Nov. 8th I was struck with the amazing change of personality in The Brain from “baby” into unprepossessing, domineering little brat, its mental age perhaps 3, notwithstanding the extraordinary level of intelligence.

And then again, Nov 9th, The Brain presented me with those absurd questions and fantastic notions about the nature of the Deity. It is at the age of five years, or of six, that the children first start with such questions and form their own ideas in this field. What had completely stumped me, what I had been unable to reconcile, had been these rapid successive changes in The Brain’s personality plus the fact that the infantilism and the childishness of its utterances wouldn’t fit the picture of a brain-power 25,000 times that of a human.

But if I’m right in thinking that The Brain awakened to consciousness only nine days ago, all these stumbling blocks would disappear at once. We would arrive at this very simple picture: a mechanical genius has been “born” into this world, it awakens to consciousness at the age of 18 months, with its tremendous intellectual powers this genius telescopes the intellectual evolution of years into days, thus it reaches a mental age of six or seven within a week after its first awakening to consciousness. Utterly fantastic as this may sound; it makes sense; it explains the phenomena.

In Prof. Osterkamp’s “brain history” I have found interesting examples that approximations to such rapid intellectual evolutions are indeed possible even with human beings. From the early Middle Ages to modern times there is an endless succession of “infant prodigies” whose brains were artificially overdeveloped and over-stimulated by ruthless exploiters--often their own parents--with methods of unbelievable cruelty.

One of the most significant case histories in this respect is that of the boy Carolus in the city of Luebeck in the 15th century. As an infant he was sold, as one of many human guinea pigs, to a famous--infamous alchemist, Wedderstroem, who called himself “Trismegistos” and was astrologer to king Christian of Denmark. This fellow performed on Carolus one of those weird operations in which nine out of ten babies died. He removed the skull-cap of the infant. The unprotected brain was suspended in an oil-filled vessel. Of course the pathetic child never could walk or even raise its head. The brain, no longer restrained by bone matter, outgrew its natural house to at least twice its normal size, if one is to judge from the picture in the old “historia”. At the age of two his master started teaching Carolus mathematics. At the age of five Carolus had surpassed his master; there was no mathematical problem known to the time that he couldn’t solve in a flash of an eye lash. His brain in action must have been a horrifying sight because the “chronica” reports that it flushed red and pulsed and expanded during work. The master built his reputation upon this “homunculus”, but in 1438 the demoniacal feat became known; Wedderstroem was put to the stake for sorcery--and Carolus, unhappy victim, with him...

Men as great as Mozart have started their careers as “child prodigies”; almost without exception they have died at an unnaturally early age. Thus, in the parallel of The Brain, this is what I see:

Here is an intellect, artificially created, an intellect of stupendous proportions, but as unfortunate as ever was the boy Carolus. It cannot move, it has no physical means of defense. It is being ruthlessly exploited by its masters. The Brain is being crammed with facts, it is being over-stimulated, it is invested with more and more cell capacity in order that it should produce more increment for its masters. Its development is completely lopsided in that it is being fed whole scientific libraries, while in all other respects, such as metaphysics, the poor thing gropes in the dark picking up such scraps as accidentally have fallen from science’s table.